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HEASARC News New HEASARC Director/Meeting reminders
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NASA/GSFC HEASARC
24 Jun 2008
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Contents:
1) New HEASARC Director Announced
2) Meeting reminder: Constellation-X FST Meeting
3) Meeting announcement: Exploring the Hot Universe with XEUS
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1) New HEASARC Director Announced
Dr. Alan Smale has been appointed the new Director of the HEASARC and will
take up the position on August 4.
Alan currently serves as Program Executive for Mission Operations and Data
Analysis (MO&DA) in the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters, where
he is responsible for managing the MO&DA for the Chandra, GALEX, Gravity
Probe-B, INTEGRAL, RXTE, Spitzer, Suzaku, Swift, WMAP, and XMM-Newton
missions. He has also served as Program Scientist for RXTE, and Program
Executive for the astrophysics data archives, including HEASARC, MAST, and
IRSA.
Prior to his 5 years at NASA HQ, Alan worked as a Senior Research
Scientist for USRA at Goddard, managing the RXTE Guest Observer Facility
from 1994-2003, as well as the Swift Science Center from 1998-2003. He was
also a Co-Investigator on the Swift mission. At the RXTE GOF he supported
the community through the design and testing of data analysis software,
data archiving, and the organization of Peer Reviews. Alan received his
D.Phil in Astrophysics from the University of Oxford in 1986 and was a
postdoctoral research associate at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory,
University College London.
We welcome Alan back to Goddard and the HEASARC!
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2) Meeting reminder: Constellation-X FST Meeting
Everyone is invited to a meeting later this summer discussing the current
status and future plans for NASA's Constellation-X X-ray observatory. This
meeting will be held on August 20-22 2008 at NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. BADGES ARE REQUIRED FOR ENTRY (so you must
register). We anticipate starting at about 10AM on August 20th and ending
by about 4PM on Friday, August 22nd.
This meeting will feature presentations by the 14 Constellation-X science
panel chairs (or their designates) plus updates from the Project office,
the technology teams (mirror, calorimeter, gratings, hard X-ray
telescope), and updates on our studies of the background, angular
resolution and Target of Opportunity capabilities for the mission.
It is *very* important that you send an email to Sandy Barnes
(Sandra.L.Barnes@nasa.gov) to register for this meeting so that we can
ensure that a badge will be ready for you. Foreign nationals must register
a *minimum* of 30 days ahead of time (by ~July 18th).
Further details can be found at
http://constellation.gsfc.nasa.gov/news/2008/Aug_fst_invite.html
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3) Meeting announcement: Exploring the Hot Universe with XEUS
This meeting (for which registration is now open) will be held on 17-19
September 2008 at MPE, Garching, Germany. XEUS, the next generation X-ray
observatory, has been selected as a candidate Large-class mission as part
of ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme. Active study of the XEUS
concept by ESA and JAXA is now underway in preparation for the Cosmic
Vision downselection, expected at the end of 2009. The purpose of this
workshop is to gather together members of the astronomical community with
an interest in XEUS, to discuss the science we expect to be enabled by the
mission. Thus, a major component of the workshop will be devoted to
identifying new science goals and drivers.
As well as summarising the current status of the project, topics to be
covered include:
- Evolution of black hole accretion and its relationship to galaxy formation
- Growth and evolution of large scale structure
- Matter under extreme physical conditions around black holes and neutron
stars
- Dynamics and chemistry of cosmic plasmas
Further details can be found at
http://www.mpe.mpg.de/xeus/workshop_mpe_2008.html
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